Battle of Bosworth Field

Significance

The Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485 ended the Wars of the Roses, the civil conflict between the houses of Lancaster and York that had run across England and Wales through the latter half of the 15th century. The Yorkist king Richard III was killed during the engagement — the last English monarch to die in battle — and his defeat by an alliance of Lancastrians and disaffected Yorkists transferred the crown to Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. Henry's subsequent marriage to Elizabeth of York, the de facto Yorkist heiress, united the two rival houses and established the Tudor dynasty. Historians regard Bosworth Field as marking the end of the Plantagenet dynasty and treat it as one of the defining turning points of English history, closing the dynastic civil war that had defined English political life for three decades.

Forces & casualties

Commanders (19)